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Lets face it, we all have those tasks in life that we with we did more often- “I should really blog more”, is one of mine (hence this blog post). Sometimes, we have surges of motivation in which we begin our good habit-forming tasks, only to forget about them a few moments later.

The big question is, why shouldn’t we be keeping good habits and achieving our desired goals? I can’t think of any reason other than human nature, really.

Enter “Lift”, a web and iOS app that encourages good habit forming, helps to track progress and adds encouragement via the sending and receiving of “props” from friends connected through Facebook and Twitter.

Data is fast becoming the hot commodity in today’s society. What do we know about our customers? How can we use our customer’s habits and trends to make our product better? While this concept is not uncommon in the non-digital world (printed surveys and small inserts in magazines aren’t uncommon), filling in surveys is fast becoming a common and, frankly, boring method of collecting data about customers or users or a product.

I know, why not make them draw things instead?

DrawSomething, a popular mobile and online game by OMGPOP, has taken the digital world by storm. Worldwide, mobile users are connecting with their friends (many via Facebook) and drawing pictures of words such as “swimming”, “magnet” and “katyperry”, in the hopes that their friend will be able to guess the word correctly. This digital take on the popular “Pictionary” board game is great fun and, frankly, rather difficult to put down. Other than the fun factor, what is the real bigger picture (pardon the punn)?

This week, Jeff and I will be presenting at our second GROW Academy Bootcamp session. We’ll be discussing “Website Design & Development” with the recruits, running through WordPress and how to setup a website using WordPress.com or WordPress.org.

The GROW Academy is an initiative to educate and empower the youth of today through technology. The Bootcamp session covers everything from social media and setting up e-mail, all the way through to search engine optimisation and an internet super-user course, for those who wish to continue on with more advanced studies. The GROW website’s “About” page (built on Canvas and Canvas BuddyPress by WooThemes) has a detailed explanation of the initiative and it’s founding partners.

“If this, then that” is a common logic step in programming. Most programmers see this on a regular basis, right from when they start out. It feels comfortable… familiar. While the principle is one used in programming, the concept is also a basic logic construct. Why not apply this same principle in daily Internet life?

“If X happens, do Y”. This could be replaced with, for example, “if you see a new blog post here, send a tweet out telling your followers about it”.

Enter Ifttt… simply named, “If this, then That”. Ifttt puts the internet to work for you. Offering a wide and ever-growing variety of channels to work with, Ifttt makes it possible to link various services to one another, based on various conditions. For example, when this post goes live, a tweet will be sent out, a status update posted to Facebook and a push notification sent to my phone, advising me that the post has been published.

Tumblr, the popular blogging software, is a hosted blogging service that enables users to post notes, audio, video, photographs, quotes, links and conversations all in one place. Not a full blogging system like WordPress or MovableType and not a micro-blogging service like Twitter, Tumblr is, I believe, a middle-ground between the two. I believe this to be the next big thing. Here’s why.

Internet users of today are part-taking in a social web, connecting and interacting with other internet users on a global scale. This has caused users to want to write more frequently, letting others know what they are up to via status updates on various social networks. In addition to writing more frequently, users seem to be writing less in many respects. Shorter snippets of content, designed to communicate in as simple a way as possible (140 characters, as a popular example) the message that they are wishing to share. Due to this shortened nature of content, users are also sharing more photographs and content of different types, enabling the same level of communication through an alternate medium.Continue reading →

OK, not real prophets… and not really preaching either. Either way, before I start, let me some up my experience of NetProphet ’09 in a single word: awesome!

NetProphet 2009, for those who don’t know (or those South Africans who’ve been living under a digital rock for the past few weeks) is a conference that was held today for the first time, hosting online media professionals, discussing the possible future of the internet, how users will embrace and interact with technology and various niche topics within these realms. Speakers on the bill included Arthur Goldstuck (Intelligence Magazine), Herman Heunis (CEO at MXit), Hannes van Rensburg (CEO Fundamo), Mike Stopforth (Cerebra, Afrigator, 27Dinner), Dave Duarte, (Huddlemind, Muti, 27Dinner), Peter Flynn (SaaS), Henk Kleynhans (Founder of Skyrove), Andrew Smith (Live Alchemy, Yuppiechef) and Charl Norman (Blueworld Communities)… a full line-up, if ever there was one.Continue reading →

A few minutes ago on Mac Appstorm, David posted a competition where readers can win one of two copies of Tweetie, a Twitter client for OS X, or a copy of DevonThink Pro, an application used for filing and organising documents, as well as aiding in the creation of a paperless office environment.

OK, so April is coming to a close. That doesn’t mean that April Fools has to end. I think the team at Zoopy would agree.

Earlier today, the team at Zoopy.com, a South African social media community, launched a new campaign called “Framed“. This campaign enables users to prank their friends, neighbours, family or random strangers (be nice) and upload their videos onto Zoopy.com (tagging them “Framed”, ofcourse), while the Zoopy community users rate and comment on their pranks. According to the website, “The top 5 pranksters will win R15k, R10k, R5k, R3k and R2k! 5 random voters will each win R1,000 Look & Listen vouchers!”.